Ruby Slippers
|previous = Her Handsome Hero |next = Sisters }} '''"Ruby Slippers" is the eighteenth episode of Season Five of ABC's Once Upon a Time. It was written by Andrew Chambliss & Bill Wolkoff, and directed by Eriq La Salle. It is the one hundred and sixth episode of the series overall, and premiered on April 17, 2016. Synopsis In flashbacks, Ruby and Mulan find themselves in Oz, where they meet Dorothy. After the three witness Zelena’s return to Oz, they look for a way to defeat her once and for all. However, Dorothy mysteriously disappears, and Ruby’s search for her new friend lands her in the Underworld. Reunited with the heroes, Ruby teams up with Emma, Regina and Snow to continue looking for Dorothy. Meanwhile, Snow and David struggle with not being able to be with their son, Neal, and devise a plan so that one of them can escape the Underworld. Recap Cast Starring *Ginnifer Goodwin as Mary Margaret Blanchard *Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan *Lana Parrilla as Regina Mills *Josh Dallas as David Nolan *Emilie de Ravin as Belle *Colin O'Donoghue as Hook *Jared S. Gilmore as Henry Mills *Rebecca Mader as Zelena *Sean Maguire *Robert Carlyle as Mr. Gold Guest Starring *Emma Caulfield as the Blind Witch *Jamie Chung as Mulan *Greg Germann as Hades *Meghan Ory as Ruby *Teri Reeves as Dorothy Gale *Victoria Smurfit as Cruella De Vil Co-Starring *Paul Lazenby as Claude *Gina Stockdale as Auntie Em Uncredited *Unknown dog as Toto Trivia |-|Production Notes= Title *The title card features Ruby in the woods.File:518Title.png *The title of this episode was announced by Adam Horowitz via his Twitter account on January 27, 2016. *Ruby slippers are mentioned by Neal in the Season Three episode "Quite a Common Fairy, when he is looking for a way to travel to Neverland. However, they do not appear on the show. **They are a reference to the magical items of the same name from 1939 The Wizard of Oz, which is the film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. **Instead, the silver slippers are introduced in the Season Three episode "It's Not Easy Being Green". Production Notes *The establishing shot of Underbrooke and the dinerFile:518Underbrooke.png is stock footage of Storybrooke taken from the Season One episode "The Thing You Love Most",File:102Storybrooke.png the Season Three episode "Save Henry"File:309WhoIsThis.png and the Season Four episode "Lily",File:419ImGoingAfterGold.png but with a different color hue. Storybrooke's clock tower has been digitally replaced by the Underbrooke library's broken version. *For the scene where Dorothy sits on Ruby's back while the latter runs in werewolf form, Teri Reeves rode a mechanical apparatus, which was CGIed into a wolf in post-production. *Belle was put under a sleeping curse in this episode, so that Emilie de Ravin could go on maternity leave. *In the episode's promo, Hades says "The gods don't like it when mortals play with their toys."File:5x18 - Ruby Slippers - Promo This line is not in the final episode. |-|Episode Connections= Event Chronology *The Oz flashbacks take place years after the flashback scenes from "Our Decay". **They also take place immediately after Zelena is banished to Oz in "Swan Song", and before she goes back to Storybrooke in the present day scenes in "Our Decay". *The Underworld events take place after "Her Handsome Hero" and before "Sisters". *The present Oz events take place not long after Zelena leaves in "Our Decay". Episode Connections *Mulan and Ruby met in "The Bear King". *Zelena was sent to Oz in "Swan Song". *Belle pushed Gaston into the River of Lost Souls in "Her Handsome Hero". *David and Mary Margaret previously haunted Prince Neal in "Our Decay". *Claude was killed by Hook in "Queen of Hearts". *Zelena points out that she gave Dorothy the silver slippers, which happened in "Kansas". *Zelena says that she took a page out of Regina's book and cast a sleeping curse on Dorothy; referring to how the Evil Queen cast a sleeping curse on Snow White in "An Apple Red as Blood". *The Blind Witch bottled David's breath in "Our Decay". *Belle talks about how Emma accelerated Zelena's pregnancy in "Birth". *Ruby mentions that ground poppy dust knocked Zelena out before, referring to events in "The Bear King". *Ruby mentions that she killed her boyfriend, which happened in "Red-Handed". *Ruby says that she eventually learned to control her wolf ability, which happened in "Child of the Moon". *Ruby mentions that she ended up in a town called Storybrooke, referring to events in "Pilot" and "A Curious Thing". *Mulan says that she waited too long to tell someone how she felt about them, referring to events in "Quite a Common Fairy". *Hades tried to force Hook to etch names into gravestones in "Labor of Love". *Mary Margaret says that when she first met Prince Charming, she hit him in the face, which is seen "Snow Falls" and "Snow Drifts". *Dorothy says to Ruby, "You came back for me", and Ruby replies, "I always will", a spin on Snow White and Prince Charming's lines from "Pilot" and "A Land Without Magic", where Snow White says, "You found me", and Charming replies, "I will always find you". *Belle tells Mr. Gold that her father should be the one who wake her with true love's kiss. Mr. Gold tries, unsuccessfully, to get him to do that in "Last Rites". *Belle is awoken from the sleeping curse in "The Savior". |-|Cultural References= Religious *While talking to Belle about the latter's fear of Hades taking her baby, Zelena is drinking whiskey. The label on the bottle says Moloch.File:518LoveWithYou.png Moloch was the sun god in Ancient Canaanite religion. In the 8th-6th century BCE, firstborn children were sacrificed to him. Disney *Dorothy mentioned that she was committed to an asylum after telling her family about Oz. This is a reference to the 1985 Disney sequel film ''Return to Oz. Fairytales and Folklore *This episode is a rendition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz story with the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy Gale, and Toto. **Auntie Em, the Munchkins and the poppy field from the novel also appear. *Also featured in this episode are the ugly duckling from the fairytale of the same name, Hades from Greek mythology, Captain Hook from the Peter Pan story, Cruella De Vil from The Hundred and One Dalmatians story, the witch from the "Hansel and Gretel" fairytale, and Mulan from the legend. **The Underworld from Greek mythology also appears. **The name of the river Styx, one of the five rivers of the Underworld from Greek mythology, appears on an archway in Hades' lair. *Auntie Em melts into a pool of water, just like the Wicked Witch of the West does in the book. Popular Culture *The way Zelena unveils a captive Toto in a basket is a reference to the 1939 The Wizard of Oz film, where the Wicked Witch of the West's Kansas counterpart Miss Gulch takes Toto away in a basket on her bike. *This episode reveals that Dorothy is LGBT. "Friend of Dorothy" happens to be a LGBT term that started out as a euphemism for stating or asking if somebody was homosexual without others knowing, back when homosexual acts were illegal in the United States. |-|Set Notes= Props Notes *As Belle is flipping through Her Handsome Hero, one page contains text from Lorem ipsum,File:518FlippingThroughBook.png a filler text commonly used as mock-content when testing a given page layout or font. Lorem ipsum consists of badly garbled Latin, based on sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of De finibus bonorum et malorum ("On the ends of good and evil"), a philosophical work by the Roman philosopher Cicero. Lorem isum is often used when previewing the layout of a document, as the use of more understandable text could easily distract the user from the layout being examined. While many forms of Lorem ipsum exists, the show uses a version that can be found on several online websites, including this French page about typography. **The exact same text appears in one of Mr. Gold's spell books in the previous episode, "Her Handsome Hero".File:517TurningPage3.png *The dais which Dorothy is lying on while under the sleeping curseFile:518AppearingInOz.png is a redressed version of the dais that Aurora was lying on while under a sleeping curse in the Season Two premiere "Broken",File:201WhatHappened.png and which Neal rested on after he was rescued in the Season Three premiere "The Heart of the Truest Believer".File:301IsHeWell.png *The Underworld storybook page that Henry is writing at the end of the episode says:File:518HenryText.png File:518HenryText2.png so tangible and intoxicating to her, was merely in her head. It was a thought that was too crushing to bear, not to mention that it also meant Dorothy would be doomed to lie on that dais forever. Ruby could hardly take the pressure, and suddenly she needed someone by her side to reassure her, someone who could instantly put all this turmoil into perspective. Fortunately Snow White was only a few feet away from her. Dorothy turned to her uneasily, and Snow nodded her on, as if to share a little of her own courage. You can do it, Ruby", Snow said. "Go on." was enough to bolster Ruby, who turned back ing up the courage to say something toward anyone before. But to look at Dorothy in . Ruby's eyes ew she And then she leaned down and kissed Dorothy. For her, it was the kiss of a lifetime. She felt a jolt of electricity pass from her lips to Dorothy's. And just as she was :*According to a photograph from an online prop auction, an unseen page reads: (Photograph) The normally bustling Munchkin Village was unusually quiet. In fact, it had been quiet for quite some time, ever since the tragic day an armor-plated female war- rior had brought the Munchkins the somnolent body of Dorothy Gale, along with Dorothy's dependent Cairn Terrier Toto. This was brave and loyal Mulan, who had sworn to Dorothy after she discovered her friend had fallen victim to a sleeping curse at the virescent hands of the Wicked Witch of the West. And protect Dorothy she did, placing her on a dais in the middle of town, and watching over her in a silent vigil, day by day. And the normally jovial Munchkins stood by her, day by day also, their jovial spirits drained by the sight of their beloved Dorothy gripped in an eternal slumber. And Toto stood by them also, loyal to the very last, his snout forever bowed at the feet of his fallen master. The streets of Oz had never before seen such a tableau of tragedy and despair, and yet here it was every day, with not a soul in the realm able to do a single thing to help Dorothy. And so this tableau repeated every day, until one day, a miracle happened. Right smack dab in the middle of a particularly long bout of silent, mournful meditation, Toto started bark- ing. The yapping came so fast and furious that for a brief moment, Mulan thought it was another of Zelena's destructive cyclones, and she immediately drew her sword, ready to take the Wicked Witch on with her her trusty blade. But there was no cyclone. No Wicked Witch. In fact there was... nothing. Toto was barking at thin air. "What is it, Toto," Mulan said. The poor little dog didn't answer back, he just kept on barking. Only it wasn't an angry, defensive barking. It was an excited barking, a barking of recognition. Mulan half expected the little ball of fur to hop up on his hand legs and do a dance of joy when finally she and the Munchkins saw what Toto had been able to detect moments before them. In a great whirling poof of magic two people suddenly appeared on the street. One of people Mulan had hoped to see. Even expected to see. And there she was in her bright red cloak. "Ruby?" Mulan said. Set Dressing *In the scene where Belle puts herself under a sleeping curse, the sewing machine on the pawnshop shelf behind Mr. GoldFile:518LetThatHappen.png is the same prop that was used for Cruella De Vil's sewing machine in the Season Four episode "Sympathy for the De Vil".File:418DeadDarling.png The same prop was sitting in the backroom of the real pawnshop in "Swan Song".File:511Rumple.png Costume Notes *The design of the silver slippers is not the same from Season ThreeFile:316TheseSlippers.png File:316ChooseMe.png to Season Five.File:518SimpleTrade.png The new slippers first appeared in "Our Decay", but they are first seen in close-up in this episode. **The new slippers are "Pompadour" French Court Shoes from American Duchess, with added glitter and bow. These shoes have been used by production companies all over the world, from South Africa's Film Afrika to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. **The same shoes were featured in the opening scene of the Outlander episode "Not in Scotland Anymore" [https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view-screencap.php?tv-show=outlander-2014&image=s02e02_33 Screenshot from Outlander: "Not in Scotland Anymore"] (which happens to be named after the phrase " "not in Kansas anymore" from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz), and a pink version of the Pompadour shoes were worn by Ivy Lynn on the Smash episode "The Fringe". |-|Goofs= Goofs *La Tandoor and Worthington's Haberdashery, two former businesses in Storybrooke,File:107NotRunningAway.png File:107WhatItsLike.png can be seen in an exterior shot of Underbrooke, where stock footage of Storybrooke from the Season Two episode "The Thing You Love Most" and the Season Three episode "Save Henry" has been used; even though previous episodes have established that the storefronts next to the Underbrooke Diner are the Underworld versions of Chop Shop, Duperré & Hughes and Any Given Sundae.File:512IImagine.png *Zelena tells Belle that she never had morning sickness because Emma sped up her pregnancy. Not every pregnant woman suffers with morning sickness; however, if they do, it begins in very early pregnancy, usually when the woman is five or six weeks pregnant, although some women may start to feel queasy as early as four weeks. As stated by Robin Hood in "Birth", Zelena was two months pregnant when her pregnancy accelerated, so if Zelena didn't have morning sickness during her pregnancy, it had nothing to do with Emma speeding it up. |-|Other Notes= Filming Locations *Vancouver's Everett Crowley Park doubles as Oz for this episode. *The scene where Ruby wakes up Dorothy with true love's kiss in the Munchkin Village was filmed on a blue-screen set at The Bridge Studios. While the dais Dorothy was lying on, and a few of the background items, were real, the rest of the village were created digitally in post-production. International Titles Videos 5x18 - Ruby Slippers - Promo 5x18 - Ruby Slippers - Sneak Peek 1 5x18 - Ruby Slippers - Sneak Peek 2 Hook And David Bond - Once Upon A Time References }} ---- nl:Ruby Slippers ru:Рубиновые башмачки